Steve Jobs to Valleywag at 2:20 AM: “Why are you so bitter?”

It's a great question. Why are people so bitter? We have several really good SmartPhone platforms to choose from today. Looks like the tablet market will be as competitive. So if we're not being forced into one platform and have the freedom to simply buy another product that suits our needs what's the real issue here? The post-PC era is going to be about making technology accessible to everyone. Is this bitterness maybe from the old guard who <i>likes</i> a world where they get to be the tech savvy computer genius their friends &#38; family rely on? Or have they built their identity around being one of the privileged elite who are educated enough to do complex and interesting things with technology? Are they offended by the idea a company might choose not to design products specifically for their needs? There's definitely some deeper issues here. Also if Dylan was 20 today he would probably be more concerned about real world issues like climate change, human rights, the corporate take over of America, the ever growing inequality between the rich and poor, etc. I gotta believe his choice of which telephone to buy might be kinda far down the list of concerns.

"By the way, what have you done that's so great? Do you create anything, or just criticise others work and belittle their motivations?"<p>Burn.

Internet drama really has come a long way, hasn't it?

It's good to be reminded that Jobs really does think he's doing the right thing. He's wrong, but he does seem to genuinely believe it.

As a programmer I thought that preventing the use of some language on a platform by contract really sucked, but I've seen applications written in flash on the IPhone since and they are painfully slow.<p>I don't have an IPhone but I can understand that having lots of applications in the store and not knowing whether an application you try would be slow or fast would really feel like a lottery. It's sad because the adobe flash tool are great animation tools, and I don't know of anything coming close on the Iphone.<p>The impact on the battery would be unsolvable too. Sometimes it's better to avoid issues.

I love that there is no reply after Steve's final question. What DOES this guy make?

Except for that ridiculous moralizing about porn (firstly, the platform should not be designed to censor content and secondly, stopping porn by not having Flash seems stupidly inefficient), Jobs is perfectly right. It's their platform and they can choose what to offer. While not an Apple user, I am nevertheless thoroughly enjoying Adobe's problems - been burned by crappy Flash plugins on Linux and I feel a sane and open wrapper for video is long overdue. Go suck a bag of dicks, Adobe. Your indispensible Flash is getting less so with every effort such as this one.

It looks like some commenters here and on the linked site actually believe this is a genuine email exchange with the real Steve Jobs... Why?

Heh, I chuckled pretty hard at the Skunkworks joke.

I think Steve Jobs has hired Dan Lyons as an email assistant!